Jim Lauderdale has revealed his 35th album Game Changer, out Aug. 26, and the uplifting single “That Kind Of Life (That Kind Of Day).”
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Kicking off Game Changer, “That Kind of Life” is a message of the times, delivered like only Lauderdale can in a blended Americana fuse of the upbeat march of drums and steel guitars. The song, which Lauderdale calls “the sentiment and wishes for others to have a good life” finds the singer offering his own message of hope from the beginning of our days and through better times—When baby tastes a little bit of sunshine / Kicks and their legs and bounces up and down/ Grins and laughs and everything is so fine / We want to keep on that way for a while.
“For some reason, the first line—‘When a baby tastes a little bit of sunshine, kicks their legs and bounces up and down, Grins and laughs and everything is so fine, We wanna keep em’ that way for a while’—just tumbled out,” Lauderdale tells American Songwriter, who had the instrumental of a twin guitar and a steel hook in his head when he sat down to write the track. “I wasn’t really sure where it was going but that image popped into my head and I went with it.
Recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, and co-produced with Jay Weaver, Lauderdale pulled from songs he’d written throughout the past several years.
“There’s a mixture on this record of uplifting songs and, at the same time, songs of heartbreak and despair—because that’s part of life as well,” shares Lauderdale, who was recently named 2022 nominee for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. “In the country song world especially, that’s always been part of it. That’s real life.”
Kicking off with “That Kind of Life (That Kind of Day),” Game Changer moves through the slower croon of “I’ll Keep My Heart Open For You,” other tracks Lauderdale needed to revisit.
“Country music is constantly evolving, but I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for steel guitar and a Telecaster,” adds Lauderdale. “I have done my job on this record if people who love classic country feel like they can put it on, or have it in their collection, and it would fit right in.”
Photo: Sky Crunch Records.
